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Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Black Friday, a Tradition by Raine English

Families
have many traditions, especially around the holidays. A favorite of mine is one
that I started years ago and share with my daughter—it’s our Black Friday
outing. We look forward to it each year, and not just because it kick-starts
the Christmas shopping season, but because it’s a time for just the two of us
to have fun.

Each
Thanksgiving evening, after we’ve stuffed ourselves with turkey and all the trimmings,
we nap for a few hours, then hit the road so that we’ll be at the mall by
midnight. We scour the stores looking for bargains but stay away from any that
attract a huge crowd. Neither one of us enjoys dealing with that madness.

Around
3:00 A.M., we take a break from the stores to drink mocha lattes and review our
purchases. Some years we haven’t had much luck finding gifts, and others we
wind up getting most of our Christmas shopping done. But our outing isn’t
really about that. It’s about being together. I know there are lots of other things we could
do besides wandering the mall in the wee hours of the morning, and I know there
are those who might think we’re crazy for doing it, but we love it. And for me,
having a mother/daughter event that I can count on yearly is very, very special,
even though it leaves me exhausted for the rest of the day.

What’s
your special holiday tradition?

~*~

USA Today bestselling author Raine English writes sweet small-town romances. She lives in New England with her family and her French bulldog, Bailey.

Her latest release, Some Christmas Magic, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo.

For information on all of her books, visit her website at www.RaineEnglish.com.

Did Black Friday once. Barely survived, so never again. For me, the day to go shopping is Superbowl Sunday. I'm not a football fan so there's no reason not to go and the malls are empty. Quite often, the after Christmas sales are still going, too, so bargains are to be had.

I don't like Black Friday crowds so I don't shop on that day, but I do like to go to the movies and meet with friends for dessert. I live close to the Mall of America and it's a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd there all through the Christmas season. The traffic going into the mall on Black Friday and every Saturday before Christmas is absolutely NUTS. Cars are lined up for a mile just to get into the parking ramp. Been there, did that once and decided to take the light rail to the mall from now on. However, I don't like Disney-sized crowds so I usually only go to the MOA in the summer.